Senior Automation Engineer (12-month contract)

Our client, a leading organisation within the banking sector, is looking for an experienced Senior Automation Engineer to join its Payments environment.

This is an opportunity to work on automation initiatives supporting critical payment systems, improving application quality, streamlining processes and enabling continuous delivery.

The successful candidate will be responsible for designing, developing and implementing automation frameworks and solutions across front-end and back-end applications, building automated regression packs, integrating automated testing into development pipelines and generating comprehensive test reports.

We are looking for someone with strong technical development capabilities who can take automation solutions from concept and design through to development, implementation and ongoing optimisation.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop and implement automation frameworks, solutions and reusable components.
• Develop automated testing solutions covering front-end, back-end and end-to-end application functionality.
• Design, build, automate and maintain regression test packs for payment systems and applications.
• Automate regression pack execution to support application releases, system enhancements and ongoing maintenance.
• Develop automated functional, integration, smoke and regression tests.
• Automate front-end testing of web applications, user interfaces and payment-related workflows.
• Develop back-end automation covering APIs, databases, web services, system integrations and business logic.
• Develop automation scripts using programming languages such as Python, Java, C# or JavaScript.
• Integrate automated testing into CI/CD pipelines to support continuous testing and deployment.
• Generate automated test reports, dashboards and execution results.
• Report on test coverage, execution progress, pass/fail rates, defects and overall application quality.
• Analyse test results, investigate failures and identify recurring issues.
• Maintain and optimise automation frameworks and regression packs as applications and business requirements evolve.
• Collaborate with developers, business analysts, solution architects and QA teams.
• Ensure automation solutions meet technical standards, security requirements, reliability and performance expectations.
• Maintain technical documentation and support automation solutions throughout their lifecycle.

Technical Requirements

1. Programming and Software Development

• Strong programming and scripting capabilities.
• Python, Java, C# or JavaScript.
• Object-oriented programming.
• Software development principles and practices.
• Building reusable automation components and frameworks.
• Debugging and troubleshooting.

2. Front-End, Back-End and Regression Automation

• Front-end automation using Selenium, Cypress or Playwright.
• Back-end automation covering APIs, web services, databases and application services.
• Automated regression testing and regression pack development.
• Experience building, maintaining and executing automated regression test suites.
• End-to-end automation testing across integrated systems.
• Functional, integration and smoke testing automation.
• API automation and validation.
• Experience automating web-based applications and enterprise systems.

3. Test Reporting and Quality Management

• Automated generation of test execution reports and dashboards.
• Reporting on test coverage, execution progress, pass/fail rates and defects.
• Analysis and interpretation of regression test results.
• Identifying failures, trends and recurring defects.
• Experience integrating automated test results with test management and reporting tools.

4. Systems Integration and Development Platforms

• REST APIs and web services.
• SQL and database integration.
• Git and version control.
• CI/CD pipelines and automated deployments.
• AWS Cloud platform.
• Docker and containerisation would be advantageous.

Minimum Requirements

• Relevant IT qualification in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology or a related discipline.
• 10+ years' experience in Automation Engineering, Software Development or Test Automation.
• Strong hands-on programming and scripting experience.
• Proven experience developing and implementing automated testing solutions.
• Experience building and maintaining automated regression packs.
• Experience with front-end and back-end automation.
• Experience integrating systems using APIs and web services.
• Experience generating automated test reports and analysing test results.
• Experience working within an Agile development environment.
• Strong analytical, technical and problem-solving skills.

Advantageous Experience

• Previous experience within banking or financial services.
• Exposure to payment systems, payment processing and transaction-related workflows.
• Experience working with enterprise-scale applications.
• DevOps and cloud-native solutions.
• Experience with complex system integrations.

What We Are Looking For

We are looking for a technically strong, hands-on Automation Engineer who can do more than execute existing automated tests.

The ideal candidate must be able to demonstrate their personal contribution to designing, coding, developing and implementing automation frameworks, automating regression packs, testing front-end and back-end functionality and producing meaningful test reports.

You should be comfortable working with complex systems, identifying automation opportunities and delivering reliable, scalable automation solutions within a banking Payments environment.